* Prosecutors say Dnipropetrovsk blasts are “terrorism”
* Yanukovich says attacks are challenge to whole country
* Bombs occur six weeks before Euro soccer tournament
(Adds comment by Ukraine PM Azarov, UEFA)
By Olzhas Auyezov
KIEV, April 27 (Reuters) – Four bombs exploded in a city in
eastern Ukraine on Friday, wounding 27 people, including nine
children, in what authorities described as an “act of
terrorism”.
President Viktor Yanukovich said the blasts in
Dnipropetrovsk, six weeks before Ukraine plays host to the
European soccer championship, represented “a challenge … to
the whole country.”
Bomb attacks are a rare occurrence in the former Soviet
republic and the blasts one after the other traumatised people
in the city, one of Ukraine’s main industrial centres with a
population of around 1.3 million.
“I had just stepped out of my house when I saw people run
down the street screaming ‘Explosions!’,” said 50-year-old local
journalist Tetyana.
“There is panic in the city. People are taking their
children out of schools and rushing to their homes,” she said.
Police said the bombs had been left in rubbish bins at
various points in the city. “No-one has been detained yet,” a
police spokesman said.
Authorities offered no immediate explanation of any motive
or say who they thought could be responsible. But the prosecutor
general’s office formally opened a criminal case classifying the
blasts as an “act of terrorism”.
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the attacks could be
exploited by his government’s critics. “It plays into the hand
of the forces that want to destabilise the situation in the
country …,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Dnipropetrovsk, 400 km (250 miles) southeast of the capital
Kiev, is not one of the four Ukrainian cities where Euro-2012
soccer tournament matches will be played.
But the bomb blasts will unsettle Ukrainian authorities who
have expressed confidence they will be able to provide full
security for the tens of thousands of European soccer fans
expected to converge on the country in June and July.
Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko immediately left for
Dnipropetrovsk and ordered extra internal troops to the city to
boost regular police. Parliament went into emergency session.
UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, said it remained
confident in the Ukrainian authorities’ ability to stage a
“smooth and festive tournament” despite the bombings.
POLITICAL TENSION
The first blast occurred at a tram stop at 11:50 a.m. (0850
GMT), wounding 13 people and shattering the windows of a nearby
tram and car.
The second explosion came 30 minutes later next to a cinema,
injuring 11 people, nine of them children, the Emergencies
Ministry said in a statement.
The third blast followed shortly afterwards next to a park,
injuring 2 people, it said. The fourth explosion, also in the
downtown area, caused no casualties, said the ministry whose
estimate of injuries was lower than that of police.
Dnipropetrovsk is one of the former Soviet republic’s
biggest industrial hubs and was a key centre of the nuclear,
arms and space industries in Soviet times.
It provided a springboard for former President Leonid
Kuchma, who was in office from 1994-2005, to rise to power. It
is also the birthplace of jailed opposition leader Yulia
Tymoshenko.
Political tension is high in the country because of the
detention of Tymoshenko who was jailed for seven years last
October for alleged abuse-of-office which she denies.
Her imprisonment has prompted sharp criticism from Western
governments which see her trial as political revenge by
Yanukovich, who narrowly beat her for the presidency in February
2010.
Ukraine’s neighbour, Russia, offered to help the authorities
investigate the bombings. Poland, another neighbour and
Ukraine’s co-host of Euro-2012, said the bombings were an
exceptional event.
“We have to treat the issue very seriously, not only because
it’s a tragedy, we’ve heard about casualties, many people
wounded,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters.
“Any attack in our region is something rather exceptional,
and I think we can talk of an attack at this point, while the
context of the Euro 2012 makes us especially sensitive to such
events.”
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Olzhas Auyezov and Natalya
Zinets; Additional reporting by Maciej Onoszko in Warsaw;
Editing by Richard Balmforth)
